Call it “Fear Factor: Valentine’s Day.”
Taking a cue from reality TV, we at Q simulated the typical Valentine’s Day panic attack:
The scenario: It’s 4 or 5 o’clock and this is the first chance you’ve had to execute some expression of affection for [NAME OF SIGNIFICANT OTHER HERE]. Your train/plane/automobile leaves in one hour. You cannot arrive home empty-handed, or at least not empty-headed–you must have arrived at a plan to please your her/him/it before you arrive home.
Price was no object, inasmuch as it would be what the volunteer was truly willing to spend–99 cents or $999.
Then they were off! Here’s what they came back with.
Trading up to Trader Joe’s
Normally, Valentine’s gift-giving in our house follows a predictable path: I get flowers and a mushy card; my husband, Joe, gets a mushy card and a package of those goofy Brach’s conversation hearts, which he loves.
My inspiration to do something different this year was a “fearless flyer” from Trader Joe’s that had traveled from the kitchen counter to Joe’s pile of potential reading material, right on top of Dr. Andrew Weil’s latest health newsletter. So I knew Joe was intrigued by the store, which touts its foods and beverages “from the exotic to the basic” and emphasizes healthy eating.
Better yet, a Trader Joe’s had opened up in La Grange, only 15 minutes from our house. The store’s relatively compact size–especially when compared to the acreage of a Costco or Sam’s Club–gave me a good shot at checking out all the merchandise in less than 30 minutes.
More Top Picks Drop Cloth
To keep myself under control, I opted for one of the handheld plastic shopping baskets instead of a shopping cart, and ended up with the following: lemon crisp cookies, dried pineapple chunks, two varieties of organic green tea, frozen salmon stuffed with spinach Florentine, lavender bath and shower gel, lavender liquid soap and flax seed oil (Q health writer Bob Condor is a firm believer in flax seed oil; it was the only thing on my list before I entered the store).
Total expenditure: $39.40. Total time spent on the mission: 56 minutes, which gives me four minutes to plunk the collection in a red basket (pulled out of Christmas storage) and, yes, add a mushy card and some conversation hearts.
–Denise Joyce
A four-pack with impact
Even if given 60 days to shop for Valentine’s Day rather than 60 minutes, I probably would have bought the same gift for my wife: just a simple token of something she loves, and it costs no more than about $3.50 for a four-pack.
It took about 20 minutes to drive to the neighborhood grocery store and look over its selection of a few gourmet root beer brands. I chose Sprecher Root Beer Soda, the non-alcoholic sibling of one of my favorite beer brands.
Maybe we’re too grizzled for Valentine’s Day, but we tend to surprise each other with little gifts when they are not expected. For her, occasionally it’s candy, rarely flowers but most often root beer. Hey, she also knows baseball.
Doing the expected is like buying a card off the shelf: It was somebody else’s idea.
–Ross Werland
Gambling on spontaneity
Alice and I have been married a long time, so “dinner and a show” has been done to death. And she prefers to get her own trinkets and baubles. So my idea is to give her those rare gems known as consideration, spontaneity and time.
1. Consideration: On Feb. 14, I’m going to call her cell and say, “Hey [nickname], I love you.” (We “oldie-weds” can never get enough of those words.)
2. Spontaneity: I’m going to ask her to dress up in a particular outfit that I like, because “We’re going out tonight.” When she asks why, I’m going to tantalize her with, “It’s a Valentine’s Surprise.”
3. Time: Being with each other, at some distance from the young ‘uns, is a delicious getaway for both of us, and I’m making sure to take her places we both like. In this case, it’s a trip to one of the Chicago area’s fine gambling boats. When we get tired of losing, we can hop in our motor vehicle and go somewhere else–some jazz or R&B venue that we will select from the entertainment listings–an excellent time for me to show more spontaneity! She will like the Russian roulette aspect of finding a place that’s not sold out.
Once there, we can reminisce about how we met, how I proposed, why did the stork have to drop off those two darned spontaneity killers at our house, etc. Or, if it’s too loud, we can just look all dreamy-eyed at each other.
Total expenditure: A guess is $200.
[Of course, there’s a chance that lady luck will adjust that.]–Geoff Brown
Little things that count
The givee: a 5-year-old boy who eats, sleeps and breathes cars. The giver: his mom, who steps on, curses at and picks up cars. When time is short and so is the recipient, the place to go in our neighborhood is Cut Rate Toys, 5409 W. Devon Ave.
Driving to the store: 7 minutes. Locating a Valentine-red beauty from Matchbox: a minute and a half. Looking around the shop for something he’d like better because it simply couldn’t be this easy, then shrugging and paying the 96 cents: 10 minutes. Return trip: 7 minutes, for a total of about 25.
You never know, it may not be the last time a woman buys him a Porsche. But one of the blessings of his being 5 is that he’ll be no less thrilled with this one.
–Nancy Watkins
Love in the tang of lime
It’s 5 p.m. and it’s Valentine’s Day and I don’t even have a card. Normally we go to our favorite restaurant. But presumably, the restaurant is booked, so here’s what I will be doing instead:
Cooking.
I run to the grocery store, pick up two steaks, two lobster tails, a couple of potatoes, corn on the cob and a bottle of red wine.
Run to Baker’s Square to pick up her favorite Key lime pie.
Need to call the baby-sitter. Assume rejection, so it becomes a threesome with our 8-month-old. Nothing that a bottle–milk, that is, followed by sleep–can’t make perfectly compatible with romance.
Then, to home and a hot stove.
There you have it: instant V-Day. The steak and lobster are window dressing, the pie and the corn keep her from changing the locks. (It reaches “special event” threshold because I know that these two last items are her favorites.)
–Geoff Black
Sam’s, we need YOU!
More Top Picks Blendtec Designer 675
The site: Sam’s Club checkout line. The scene: A cart overflowing with 36 rolls of Quilted Northern toilet paper, 9 jumbo rolls of Bounty paper towels atop myriad frozen foods and fresh meats. The Valentine’s gift: Nearly forgotten.
Not wanting to step out of line and wait another 20 minutes to get to the register, I spy the table piled high with jeans and polar fleece shirts. I think, maybe. Then decide, no, that’s what I did for Christmas. Three aisles over, a huge flat-screen TV stares at me. Tempting, but definitely out of the question.
Across the aisle I see boxers. What’s more Valentine’s than that? I grab a bag of boxers, about $13 for three, and step up to the register.
And not one shrimp in my cart thawed out.
–Johnnie Miller-Cleaves
A hunk of burnin’ . . . Hello?
My Valentine’s Day gift-grabbing excursion was total fantasy, because my honey lives far away. So I gave myself 15 minutes to take a make-believe run through Dominick’s to see what I’d grab for him if he were here.
We’re in the early stage of our relationship, where it’s all about, well, you know . . . so I figured this was a breeze. I nabbed a cheese tray, crackers, a bottle of wine, candles and bubble bath. (Tip: If you’re in the grocery story seeking big, fabulous bubbles, go for Mr. Bubbles; if you want to leave your loved one soothed and relaxed, get Johnson’s Bedtime Bath with chamomile and lavender. No one has to see what you’re actually pouring into the tub.) The whole thing set me back a measly $30 (on my budget, we’d drink cheap wine).
I was pretty proud of my quick picks. Until I talked to my boyfriend on the phone that night. After I rattled off my selections, there was silence, then laughter.
“Sounds great,” he said. “It would be interesting lying back in the tub in the candlelight sipping wine . . . especially since I’d be dead!”
Then he reminded me that he’s severely allergic to dairy products–which I should have remembered from the time I brought him ice cream two nights in a row only to have him holler the second night, “Are you trying to kill me?!” In short, he would have croaked on my first little Valentine’s Day present, the cheese.
Oh, well. More for me.
— Devin Rose